01 · OPEN CONTENT
Press OPEN FILE or drop videos / images anywhere in the window — several at once if you like. They line up as slots in the clip at the left edge; click a slot or press its number to switch. Files play straight from your disk — nothing is uploaded or copied.
Tap OPEN FILE and pick videos or images on your phone — several at once if you like. They line up in the clip at the top of the screen. Files play straight from your phone — nothing is uploaded or copied.
From the home screen the player picks the mode by the file: 2:1 goes to 360, a flat picture (16:9, scope, 4:3) and a name starting FD_, PL_ or FT_ to FULLDOME 180, a square goes to the dome mode you used last, a name starting SRD_ goes to SRD, and «srd» elsewhere in the name too unless the picture is flat. Inside a mode OPEN keeps the current mode — only a flat picture opened in 360 or SRD goes to FULLDOME 180, the mode that shows it as a frame, as AR DOME does.
Formats: MP4 (H.264 / HEVC), WebM, JPG / PNG. ProRes plays in Safari on Mac only.
02 · MODES
FULLDOME 180 — classic planetarium dome, square domemaster. Tilt the dome, change FOV.
SRD 280° — Super Reality Dome, you stand inside a real-scale dome. Pick the dome size; the floor grid shows FRONT / BACK / LEFT / RIGHT.
VIDEO 360 / PHOTO 360 — full sphere, 2:1 equirectangular. A floor grid with FRONT / BACK / LEFT / RIGHT keeps your bearings; Bthe floor button in the panel hides it. PITCH tips the whole panorama, for footage shot off the level.
AR DOME — the dome over your camera picture, in your room or outside.
DEPTH — in FULLDOME 180 it moves you back from the centre to the last row: under the dome's back edge, never out of it — the figure button is there to see the dome from outside. In a flying theater it runs as far as in a planetarium of the same size; in AR DOME it runs to 10 m, to see the dome standing further off in your room.
MEASURE — in the figure's view the MEASURE button over the figure opens a drawing of the dome as it stands: a side view with the floor, the tilt, the height and the figure to scale, and under it the sizes — tilt, diameter, radius, length, height from the floor to the top, the edge over the floor, the figure and its eyes. Move TILT, DOME, RIM, DEPTH or EYE and the drawing follows; M does the same. Under the sizes, SEATS: the hall from above with its rows and how many people it holds — an average from real halls (on the floor in a small dome, chairs in rings in a planetarium, rows facing front in a tilted hall), not a hall's project.
HEIGHT — how tall the viewer is: 1.70 m by default, 1.00 for a child; the eyes are 10 cm under the top of the head. Seated in a planetarium's chair, set about 1.30 to see from the eyes of the audience. The floor, the last row for DEPTH and the figure follow it. Tap the number for 1.70.
VR IN THE DOME — open a VR file (2:1, or VR_ in the name) in FULLDOME 180, SRD 280 or AR DOME and it is converted to the dome on the fly: no render, nothing is saved. From the home screen a VR file still opens in VIDEO 360 or PHOTO 360 — switch to a dome mode and it is converted there. In the clip it sits under VR → DOME on the fulldome and VR → SRD on the SRD. OFFSET turns the camera inside the VR sphere, in the numbers of the ARK DomeConvertor script: V is the tilt — where the camera looks, 0° THEATER straight ahead, 45° FULLDOME, 90° ZENITH — H the pan, R the roll. On the SRD the camera looks down at the floor, as in the script, and only H turns.
FLAT IN THE DOME — a flat video or picture (16:9, scope, 4:3 — neither square nor 2:1, and no prefix in the name) opened in FULLDOME 180 or AR DOME stands on the dome as a frame, the way After Effects' VR Plane to Sphere puts it: nothing is rendered. In the clip it sits under FLAT → DOME. SCALE is the frame's height in degrees, as Scale in After Effects' VR Plane to Sphere — the same number gives the same frame; OFFSET V and R move the camera as for a VR file — at 45° the frame stands halfway up the front of the dome — and X, in H's place, turns the picture itself towards or away from you, as Source Tilt (X axis) in After Effects: a frame low in a planetarium can face the audience instead of standing at a slant. BACK lights the dark round the frame with the same picture, stretched over the whole dome and blurred, as in After Effects; at 0% it stays dark. GLOW is Ambilight: a thin light line on the frame's edge and a glow in the colours of the picture's own edge, following the video; at 0% it is off. From the home screen it opens in FULLDOME 180 by itself.
BACKGROUND — with a flat file on the fulldome, the BACK / GROUND button over FRUSTUM puts a VR panorama (a 2:1 picture) under the frame instead of the blurred picture: a sharp environment, laid on the dome as a VR file is. While the button is lit, OFFSET H, V and R turn the background; press it again and they move the frame, the background staying. BACK is its brightness. The × on the button takes it away. The picture stays on your device, like every file you open.
03 · THE CLIP
Every file you open goes into the clip — the row of tiles at the top. In a dome mode the tiles are categories: tap one to see its shows, tap a show to play it. Each slot remembers its own timecode, so you compare versions at the same moment. × removes a slot; the clip stays with you when you change the dome mode.
Every file you open goes into the clip — the column of slots at the left edge. Load ten renders at once, then switch between them with a click, the number keys or ↑ ↓. Each slot remembers its own timecode, so you compare versions at the same moment. × removes a slot; the clip stays with you when you change the dome mode.
04 · GUIDES & RIG
The gray ring is the dome rig — where the picture ends. It stays on screen. The lime edge line and direction labels are guides: they go away with the panel and come back with it: the PANEL button or P with a mouse, any touch on a phone. The lime edge of the SRD floor stays with the floor — it is the only edge the floor has.
B or the floor button in the panelThe floor button in the panel hides rig and guides together — for clean screen recordings.
GRID — the GRID button or G. On the SRD 280 it is the dome's own coordinates, drawn on the dome over the picture and laid out like the calibration grid in a real SRD: rows A, B, C… from the floor up, FRONT, LEFT, RIGHT and BACK on the horizon; the GRID slider in the panel (SRD only) fills its cells, up to a solid test pattern. On the fulldome it is the grid of the ARK DomeConvertor script: a ring every 15° of altitude, a spoke every 30°, and fainter ones in between. With a flat file a lime zone shows the 90° × 90° view of a camera looking at the frame — the comfortable size: keep the frame inside it and it reads as a flat picture. Once the frame is set, the FRUSTUM button next to GRID puts the zone away and leaves the dome's grid.
Look around: drag with the mouse.
